steeldragons
Steeliest of the dragons
Sure, yeah. Shoot.
Show us what you've got. What else did you want to talk about gnomes-wise?
Show us what you've got. What else did you want to talk about gnomes-wise?
D&D 5E Seeking Help/Critique on a Setting
- Thread starter QuietBrowser
- Start date
QuietBrowser
First Post
Well, I rather thought you'd have comments on my clarification of who the water & plains gnomes are, and specifically whether plains gnomes should be pony-riders or pack-hunting predator-tamers.
Anyway... hmm, I should stick with one race-base to a post, shouldn't I? Let's start with the Haffun.
To explain who they are; this was the basic concept I posted back on that other forum:
There are two major things about the haffuns that I currently am wrestling with:
- Size: Should I make them Small or Medium? Maybe split the difference and go with Small being the norm, but an uncommon strain that is larger (Medium) and more aggressive in temperament also helps protect their communities?
- Origins: I've not got any real idea for where they came from or how they settled into the Grassy Ocean. Should I try and come up with something more specific, or embrace the ambiguity?
Now, on with the facts...
The Haffuns are the dominant race of the Grassy Ocean in terms of numbers alone. Agrarian by nature, they settle in large communes known as "warrens"; villages made from heaped earth and woven grass, or timber where possible. In truth, many warrens are quite sparsely set; a relatively small "village" in the human sense serves to house the various businesses that the community depends on, with each haffun family who lives in the warren having its own expansive farmstead surrounding the business-village; the haffuns come to this central hub for various reasons, such as conducting trade.
The agrarian skills of the haffuns are well-know; enormous farmsteads house herds of tamed livestock and/or expansive fields of crops. Lacking in mineral wealth, it is the quality and quantity of their produce that gives them the mercantile strength needed to trade with their human neighbors for metal tools.
The secrets of the haffun agriculture lie in their leadership by druids (shamans?); individuals skilled in the magic of beast and plant, who guide their people in taking what they need from the land without cruelty or waste.
Haffun culture seems paternalistic in nature to outsiders; it is the males who are typically selected as leader-figures, and the males are certainly a plucky and strutting sort. But the women can be just as bold and braggadocios, and work alongside them equally in the fields. In truth, haffuns are matriarchal; the druidic cabals that lead the warrens internally are comprised almost solely of females, and every haffun male knows that in the house, it's the female who's the boss.
Part of the reason for this is that the inherent talent for magic is heavily concentrated amongst the female gender of haffuns. Males with magic are less common, and those with potent magic even less so; most male haffun mages are "dabblers", who have the talent to learn only minor magic - Eldritch Knights, Arcane Tricksters, and the like. Males can potentially reach the heights of arcane power, but the talent just isn't as common for them as it is for their females.
The inherent forms of magic that resonate with the haffun race are nature magic (druids/clerics), storm magic, wild magic, and fate/luck/fortune magic ("Luckbender Sorcerers", a variant of Chaos Sorcerer from Dragon #385). Whilst druids/clerics form the true rulers of the race, sorcerers are also respected, because their arcane talents are some of the best weapons that their race has. Wizards are uncommon, but some haffuns do go away to the human republic to learn the art; male haffuns find they have more success learning wizardry than they do developing sorcerous talents - and druidic/clerical magic is almost never seen amongst the males. Warlocks, known to the halflings as Hucksters, are much more common than wizards - and almost exclusively male, for it is the males who are most tempted to barter with fey or fiends to attain the power that some quirk of nature denies them.
As a general rule, the haffuns are a peaceful and easy-going people. Work hard, play hard; that's the haffun motto. They toil at their labors during the day, then gather at dusk to feast and celebrate. Whilst they can be surprisingly quiet at times, and their scouts are infamous for it, they are by nature generally a loud and raucous people; haffun farms ring with song, laughter, cussing and rough jests, and a haffun meal is practically a battle.
Which is rather helped by the infamous size of haffun families. They may not live as long as the Wildheart Gnomes, but they can easily keep up with them in terms of extensive families. Haffuns don't breed quite as rapidly or as heavily as rabbits, but an average family can number between one and two dozen kids - or even more than that, on the biggest farms that need the most workers.
Haffuns are not a particularly militaristic race. Individuals make their own paths, and every warren has a militia that tries to protect it against hobgoblin raiders from Viltheed, but as a general rule they are heavily reliant on military support from the human republic for their protection, which is why the haffuns bother to trade instead of just keeping their produce all to themselves.
Being not very well suited for melee combat compared to some races, haffuns have taken a great liking to the gun. It is considered one of the most desirable weapons, and every haffun with the wealth to do so acquires a rifle. Pistols are surprisingly common in haffun warrens, and skill with a firearm is quite a social merit to them In particular, Haffun scouts train diligently in the use of the rifle, and justly respected for their skill, stealth and speed, which allows them to rapidly redeploy for maximum firepower.
Of the various dangers that threaten the haffun warrens, the two worst are universally held to be the bulettes and the moto-mauraders of Viltheed. Indeed, many haffuns swear that bulettes are some abominable battle-beast unleashed by hobgoblin fleshcrafters, and the ravages of these rapacious subterranean predators are held as one of the great evils laid at the feet of the hobgoblins.
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QuietBrowser
First Post
Just so they're altogether, let me share with you what I have for the Sun and Moon Elves. This is very rough stuff, and there's a lot of refinement I want to do for this race, but let's not get overwhelmed here. Picking one and building it up is the plan.
History of the Concepts:
I won't deny the obvious influences upon each faction - the fanmade Amazons codex for Warhammer Fantasy and the Necromunda relaunch's depiction of House Escher for the Sun Elves, the Forsaken Elves of the Scarred Lands and the Eldar of Craftworld Iyanden for the Moon Elves - but the meta-origin of these elves lay in the common trope of portraying elves as a Race In Decline. This is an old and well-rooted racial trope, but it's not without its subtropes. The typical elf portrayal is of the Dying Race trope, which I used for the Moon Elves - a species whose civilization has fallen, whose umbers are dwindling, and who is plagued by ennui and/or despair. But there's a flipside to this, a portrayal I've never seen used for elves; the Falling Race.
This is a racial trope you see a lot of if you look back into Pulp Fantasy; the race that didn't decline through dying out, but through devolution - technology fell away, culture regressed, until you had only barbarians living amongst the ruins of their former glory.
I will admit that this can be a racially charged trope, but it doesn't have to be a negative thing - Conan's own Cimmerian peoples were Fallen Atlanteans, and the Hyborea setting was based on the idea of races evolving, devolving and re-evolving in an endless cycle. Besides, what tropes aren't racially charged, these days?
Moon Elves, then, represent the standard Dying Race; their culture has fallen from glory, their works crumble, their numbers dwindle as deaths outnumber births, and ennui and despair haunt them constantly.
Sun Elves, in contrast, are the Falling Race; they are healthy, vibrant, passionate, full of hope for the future and their numbers are plentiful. But the heights their ancestors reached are beyond them. They can't replicate the arcanotech devices they wield, just preserve them through increasingly ritualized methods. Reason and logic are giving way to superstition and mysticism. Control gives way to violent passions and bloodlust. Order falls to chaos.
So, I've got the basic concept of who I want the Sun & Moon Elves to be to each other - bound by having both fallen from grace, yet having done so in opposite directions, mirroring each other like night and day. But that leaves the question of "how did this happen"?
The Rise & Fall of the Elves:
Long story short, elves as they exist in (Setting) today - I really need a better world-name for it - are all descendants of a colonizing/conquering empire that originally emerged from the Feywild eons ago. These "ur-elves" conquered huge swathes of the world, until a native empire finally managed to throw them back. To do this, they created a powerful arcane artifact, something aimed at stymieing the main advantage of the elves; that the bulk of their people were still in the Feywild and they could bring terrible magical beasts and more readily-enchanted items to bear from the Feywild, to say nothing of using it for extra manueverability.
Thus they created the Netherstorm, the planar phenomena that shrouds the world and makes travel between it and the other planes... difficult. In a single move, they cut off the elves from the Feywild. But they were surprised at just how mighty a blow they struck.
As extraplanar beings, the elves need a connection to their home plane - all fey do, in fact; the reason why fey creatures have their propensity to be "personifications" is actually a response to this. Cut off from the sustaining energies of the Feywild, a fey creature's only hope for survival is to form a spiritual bond with a certain aspect of the mortal world, essentially "plugging into" the world. Think of it like swapping extension leads. The gnomes have done this, and this is actually the foundation for the split between the "cog gnomes" and the "wild gnomes".
The elves were devastated. Even beyond those killed by the rival empire, they were struck by the slow, spiritual wasting that came from being cut off by the Feywild. The Moon Elves represent this fate; low fertility, overwhelming despair and ennui, and the other spiritual malaise they suffer from are all because they have been cut off from the Feywild and have not deduced how to form a new connection to this plane of existence. The Sun Elves attempted to treat this malady with their alchemy, utilizing special ingredients harvested from their jungle homes and pairing them with medical magitek left behind after the Feywild was cut off - it worked, and it granted them increased physical vitality beyond that enjoyed even by the Ur-Elves, but it has taken its toll on their minds, not to mention killing off all of their menfolk and leaving them dependent on the Rite of Generation. Or whatever I end up calling it.
Incidentally, this opens up the field for further elven factions, representing other survivor splinter-civilizations if I can find unique identities for them.
This is an event that happened a long time ago. So only the dusty archives of the Moon Elves would hold this information, and none live today who know that the Netherstorm is artificial.
Elves of the Moon:
Moon Elves come by their name fairly; they live on the Moon, a habitable but icy and dreary landscape - the Winterkin Eladrin and Dusk Elves of 4e were two of my inspirations for this race. It's a chill, hollow, eerie world; the sentiment of any human visitor would be that it feels like a giant tomb, and that's hugely evocative of who the Moon Elves are.
These elves are pale and ghostly. Some rare few may have deep black or blood red hair, but most have white, silver, gray or even pale blue hair, which matches their grave-like skintones, ranging from rare ash-gray through ghostly white to icy pale blue. Tall, slender and waifish in frame, even the youngest of them seems faded and lifeless in some way.
When the Netherstorm erupted, the Moon Elves were stranded on the moon; I'm currently fond of the idea that, initially, they were in pretty good shape, but its current withered, half-living state is the result of some epic battle that the Moon Elves fought against another threat in the interim between their stranding and the present - I don't know, what do you folks think?
The Moon Elves hold themselves up as the last representative of elven purity, and it's true that their culture is all but unchanged since its founding, but this means that they have not unlocked the secret of replacing the broken link they have to the Feywild. As such, they are a dying race; conception is uncommon amongst them, and stillbirths occur more frequently than live births. Whilst their situation would inflict a malaise anyway, their broken souls gnaw at their emotions, inflicting a strong sense of despair and/or ennui that all Moon Elves must battle.
This means that these elves tend to be grim, stoic, apathetic or melancholic in behavior.
It also means the Moon Elf culture is somewhat... Gormenghastian, for lack of a better term. Ritual and rote repetition has become central to their daily lives, with the broken souled elves simply going through the motions of daily life.
That said, they're not without their virtues. Honor is hugely important to Moon Elves, and they will keep their word - though, the downside of that is that if a Moon Elf vows he's going to kill you, then he's serious about that, too.
To compensate for their dwindling population, given that they still retain full access to the advanced industrialized magic of their ancestors, Moon Elves rely heavily on enchanted devices and legions of constructs.
Elves of the Sun:
The Sun Elves inhabit a deadly - possibly magically warped? - tropical jungle region, analogous to Lustria in Warhammer Fantasy.
Appearance-wise... unsure; I'm inclined towards a dark yet colorful appearance, to contrast the pallor of the Moon Elves. Coppery, tan, bronze and even black skins contrasting vibrant blonde, red or otherwise brightly colored hair - alchemical dye as a cultural product gives a certain amount of leeway there.
The Sun Elves descend from a colony established in that region before the Netherstorm, originally an order of healers and alchemists experimenting with the exotic and unfamiliar (to them at the time) plants and animals native to the region. When the malaise brought about by the spiritual sundering came about, they mistook it for some unfamiliar disease brought back to the colony. As such, they tried to treat it with new healing tonics and elixirs - they found a formula that worked, but it only worked on the women, causing the loss of all men in the colony and causing them to evolve into the amazonian elves they are today.
Sun Elves are physically in great condition, strong, healthy and vibrant. They're also in far better emotional shape than Moon Elves; passionate, driven, upbeat.
But their transformation has had its effect on their minds - the finer details I'm struggling with, but the basic idea is that this is behind their technological decline. They can't replicate or rebuild the stuff their ancestors made. They are still skilled mages, in their own unique way, and still master herbalists. They're not stupid, just... they can't re-grasp the principles of design that they've lost.
It's also had an impact on their emotions. Sun Elves are much more feral, savage if you'll forgive the term. They are hotblooded; impulsive, prone to acting on instinct, vengeful, vicious, bloodthirsty. A Moon Elf will cut you down to defend himself without a qualm if he must, but a Sun Elf will pick a fight because she likes fighting.
They're intensely loyal to those they care about and trust - Crinos was on the money when he noted they remind him of the Tamaranians. So they're definitely not all evil, and I want them to have positive interactions with the outside world - they might have a slight xenophobic tinge, but the goal here is to make them closer to the Elves of Nentir Vale, not the Grugach of Greyhawk.
That said, I do want to give them a reason to be somewhat xenophobic; not just because they enjoy fighting, but for cultural reasons. Maybe the essential ingredient in the potions they use to reproduce a/homosexually is also a longevity elixir in non-fey?
Something I've considered is to play with their lore and take it further; they're already alchemists who turned themselves into amazons and reproduce through herbal alchemy; what about adding splinter-sects, "totem guilds", who take their admiration of specific jungle beasts (or plants?) to the level of using their potions to mutate themselves into new species to better emulate their totems. Could this work, or would it be going too far, do you guys think?
Elves of Mixed Blood:
I'll be honest here; I prefer that half-elves A: be a true-breeding race in their own right, and B: not be given an overly angsty background. I don't like these "realistic" portrayals.
For Half-Moon Elves, I will admit that the Moon Elves owe inspiration to the Forsaken Elves of the Scarred Lands. However, that setting handled half-elves in a ridiculous manner: the Forsaken Elves have turned to human trafficking to bolster their numbers by seeing if breeding with humans can circumvent the curse of Chern. Long story short, it does, but the Forsaken Elves treat their half-human offspring, the only hope their species has at this point, like absolute garbarge, resulting in most of these half-elves running away to Ghelspad, where they blend in with the loved, respected and welcomed half-elves of the local Moon Elves.
As such, I'm thinking that Half-Moon Elves are likewise the result of trying to circumvent the curse of the Moon Elves - and that they are a success. This means that Moon Elves love and welcome them. Though maybe they should have some flaws - physically frail, or prone to erratic behavior ala the "La Lunatia" of the half-vistani - to represent the physical degeneration experienced by the elven side of their lineage?
Half-Sun Elves... well, I know I want them to be a thing; even if the Sun Elves are quite content with the Rite of Spring Flowering as their racial mainstay for reproduction, when you send a passionate woman out to adventure in a world where men are a thing, a little "interspecies bedroom diplomacy" is sure to happen eventually.
Beyond that... not really sure. I'm strongly inclined to think that, given their elven ancestry, Half-Sun Elves should be strongly female-inclined - something like only 1 in 10 males are born, as a result of the mystical mutations that their elven ancestors have undergone. Does that make sense?
I don't know... I really need a clearer grasp of who the Sun Elves are beyond "tropical amazon-punk elves with magical archeotec weapons" before I worry about their halfbreed spawn.
History of the Concepts:
I won't deny the obvious influences upon each faction - the fanmade Amazons codex for Warhammer Fantasy and the Necromunda relaunch's depiction of House Escher for the Sun Elves, the Forsaken Elves of the Scarred Lands and the Eldar of Craftworld Iyanden for the Moon Elves - but the meta-origin of these elves lay in the common trope of portraying elves as a Race In Decline. This is an old and well-rooted racial trope, but it's not without its subtropes. The typical elf portrayal is of the Dying Race trope, which I used for the Moon Elves - a species whose civilization has fallen, whose umbers are dwindling, and who is plagued by ennui and/or despair. But there's a flipside to this, a portrayal I've never seen used for elves; the Falling Race.
This is a racial trope you see a lot of if you look back into Pulp Fantasy; the race that didn't decline through dying out, but through devolution - technology fell away, culture regressed, until you had only barbarians living amongst the ruins of their former glory.
I will admit that this can be a racially charged trope, but it doesn't have to be a negative thing - Conan's own Cimmerian peoples were Fallen Atlanteans, and the Hyborea setting was based on the idea of races evolving, devolving and re-evolving in an endless cycle. Besides, what tropes aren't racially charged, these days?
Moon Elves, then, represent the standard Dying Race; their culture has fallen from glory, their works crumble, their numbers dwindle as deaths outnumber births, and ennui and despair haunt them constantly.
Sun Elves, in contrast, are the Falling Race; they are healthy, vibrant, passionate, full of hope for the future and their numbers are plentiful. But the heights their ancestors reached are beyond them. They can't replicate the arcanotech devices they wield, just preserve them through increasingly ritualized methods. Reason and logic are giving way to superstition and mysticism. Control gives way to violent passions and bloodlust. Order falls to chaos.
So, I've got the basic concept of who I want the Sun & Moon Elves to be to each other - bound by having both fallen from grace, yet having done so in opposite directions, mirroring each other like night and day. But that leaves the question of "how did this happen"?
The Rise & Fall of the Elves:
Long story short, elves as they exist in (Setting) today - I really need a better world-name for it - are all descendants of a colonizing/conquering empire that originally emerged from the Feywild eons ago. These "ur-elves" conquered huge swathes of the world, until a native empire finally managed to throw them back. To do this, they created a powerful arcane artifact, something aimed at stymieing the main advantage of the elves; that the bulk of their people were still in the Feywild and they could bring terrible magical beasts and more readily-enchanted items to bear from the Feywild, to say nothing of using it for extra manueverability.
Thus they created the Netherstorm, the planar phenomena that shrouds the world and makes travel between it and the other planes... difficult. In a single move, they cut off the elves from the Feywild. But they were surprised at just how mighty a blow they struck.
As extraplanar beings, the elves need a connection to their home plane - all fey do, in fact; the reason why fey creatures have their propensity to be "personifications" is actually a response to this. Cut off from the sustaining energies of the Feywild, a fey creature's only hope for survival is to form a spiritual bond with a certain aspect of the mortal world, essentially "plugging into" the world. Think of it like swapping extension leads. The gnomes have done this, and this is actually the foundation for the split between the "cog gnomes" and the "wild gnomes".
The elves were devastated. Even beyond those killed by the rival empire, they were struck by the slow, spiritual wasting that came from being cut off by the Feywild. The Moon Elves represent this fate; low fertility, overwhelming despair and ennui, and the other spiritual malaise they suffer from are all because they have been cut off from the Feywild and have not deduced how to form a new connection to this plane of existence. The Sun Elves attempted to treat this malady with their alchemy, utilizing special ingredients harvested from their jungle homes and pairing them with medical magitek left behind after the Feywild was cut off - it worked, and it granted them increased physical vitality beyond that enjoyed even by the Ur-Elves, but it has taken its toll on their minds, not to mention killing off all of their menfolk and leaving them dependent on the Rite of Generation. Or whatever I end up calling it.
Incidentally, this opens up the field for further elven factions, representing other survivor splinter-civilizations if I can find unique identities for them.
This is an event that happened a long time ago. So only the dusty archives of the Moon Elves would hold this information, and none live today who know that the Netherstorm is artificial.
Elves of the Moon:
Moon Elves come by their name fairly; they live on the Moon, a habitable but icy and dreary landscape - the Winterkin Eladrin and Dusk Elves of 4e were two of my inspirations for this race. It's a chill, hollow, eerie world; the sentiment of any human visitor would be that it feels like a giant tomb, and that's hugely evocative of who the Moon Elves are.
These elves are pale and ghostly. Some rare few may have deep black or blood red hair, but most have white, silver, gray or even pale blue hair, which matches their grave-like skintones, ranging from rare ash-gray through ghostly white to icy pale blue. Tall, slender and waifish in frame, even the youngest of them seems faded and lifeless in some way.
When the Netherstorm erupted, the Moon Elves were stranded on the moon; I'm currently fond of the idea that, initially, they were in pretty good shape, but its current withered, half-living state is the result of some epic battle that the Moon Elves fought against another threat in the interim between their stranding and the present - I don't know, what do you folks think?
The Moon Elves hold themselves up as the last representative of elven purity, and it's true that their culture is all but unchanged since its founding, but this means that they have not unlocked the secret of replacing the broken link they have to the Feywild. As such, they are a dying race; conception is uncommon amongst them, and stillbirths occur more frequently than live births. Whilst their situation would inflict a malaise anyway, their broken souls gnaw at their emotions, inflicting a strong sense of despair and/or ennui that all Moon Elves must battle.
This means that these elves tend to be grim, stoic, apathetic or melancholic in behavior.
It also means the Moon Elf culture is somewhat... Gormenghastian, for lack of a better term. Ritual and rote repetition has become central to their daily lives, with the broken souled elves simply going through the motions of daily life.
That said, they're not without their virtues. Honor is hugely important to Moon Elves, and they will keep their word - though, the downside of that is that if a Moon Elf vows he's going to kill you, then he's serious about that, too.
To compensate for their dwindling population, given that they still retain full access to the advanced industrialized magic of their ancestors, Moon Elves rely heavily on enchanted devices and legions of constructs.
Elves of the Sun:
The Sun Elves inhabit a deadly - possibly magically warped? - tropical jungle region, analogous to Lustria in Warhammer Fantasy.
Appearance-wise... unsure; I'm inclined towards a dark yet colorful appearance, to contrast the pallor of the Moon Elves. Coppery, tan, bronze and even black skins contrasting vibrant blonde, red or otherwise brightly colored hair - alchemical dye as a cultural product gives a certain amount of leeway there.
The Sun Elves descend from a colony established in that region before the Netherstorm, originally an order of healers and alchemists experimenting with the exotic and unfamiliar (to them at the time) plants and animals native to the region. When the malaise brought about by the spiritual sundering came about, they mistook it for some unfamiliar disease brought back to the colony. As such, they tried to treat it with new healing tonics and elixirs - they found a formula that worked, but it only worked on the women, causing the loss of all men in the colony and causing them to evolve into the amazonian elves they are today.
Sun Elves are physically in great condition, strong, healthy and vibrant. They're also in far better emotional shape than Moon Elves; passionate, driven, upbeat.
But their transformation has had its effect on their minds - the finer details I'm struggling with, but the basic idea is that this is behind their technological decline. They can't replicate or rebuild the stuff their ancestors made. They are still skilled mages, in their own unique way, and still master herbalists. They're not stupid, just... they can't re-grasp the principles of design that they've lost.
It's also had an impact on their emotions. Sun Elves are much more feral, savage if you'll forgive the term. They are hotblooded; impulsive, prone to acting on instinct, vengeful, vicious, bloodthirsty. A Moon Elf will cut you down to defend himself without a qualm if he must, but a Sun Elf will pick a fight because she likes fighting.
They're intensely loyal to those they care about and trust - Crinos was on the money when he noted they remind him of the Tamaranians. So they're definitely not all evil, and I want them to have positive interactions with the outside world - they might have a slight xenophobic tinge, but the goal here is to make them closer to the Elves of Nentir Vale, not the Grugach of Greyhawk.
That said, I do want to give them a reason to be somewhat xenophobic; not just because they enjoy fighting, but for cultural reasons. Maybe the essential ingredient in the potions they use to reproduce a/homosexually is also a longevity elixir in non-fey?
Something I've considered is to play with their lore and take it further; they're already alchemists who turned themselves into amazons and reproduce through herbal alchemy; what about adding splinter-sects, "totem guilds", who take their admiration of specific jungle beasts (or plants?) to the level of using their potions to mutate themselves into new species to better emulate their totems. Could this work, or would it be going too far, do you guys think?
Elves of Mixed Blood:
I'll be honest here; I prefer that half-elves A: be a true-breeding race in their own right, and B: not be given an overly angsty background. I don't like these "realistic" portrayals.
For Half-Moon Elves, I will admit that the Moon Elves owe inspiration to the Forsaken Elves of the Scarred Lands. However, that setting handled half-elves in a ridiculous manner: the Forsaken Elves have turned to human trafficking to bolster their numbers by seeing if breeding with humans can circumvent the curse of Chern. Long story short, it does, but the Forsaken Elves treat their half-human offspring, the only hope their species has at this point, like absolute garbarge, resulting in most of these half-elves running away to Ghelspad, where they blend in with the loved, respected and welcomed half-elves of the local Moon Elves.
As such, I'm thinking that Half-Moon Elves are likewise the result of trying to circumvent the curse of the Moon Elves - and that they are a success. This means that Moon Elves love and welcome them. Though maybe they should have some flaws - physically frail, or prone to erratic behavior ala the "La Lunatia" of the half-vistani - to represent the physical degeneration experienced by the elven side of their lineage?
Half-Sun Elves... well, I know I want them to be a thing; even if the Sun Elves are quite content with the Rite of Spring Flowering as their racial mainstay for reproduction, when you send a passionate woman out to adventure in a world where men are a thing, a little "interspecies bedroom diplomacy" is sure to happen eventually.
Beyond that... not really sure. I'm strongly inclined to think that, given their elven ancestry, Half-Sun Elves should be strongly female-inclined - something like only 1 in 10 males are born, as a result of the mystical mutations that their elven ancestors have undergone. Does that make sense?
I don't know... I really need a clearer grasp of who the Sun Elves are beyond "tropical amazon-punk elves with magical archeotec weapons" before I worry about their halfbreed spawn.
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Bitbrain
Lost in Dark Sun
^this is a bloody good post Quietbrowser, simply amazing ideas.
Half-Moon Elves . . . I really like your idea here about Moon Elves cherishing their Half-Elf children.
The idea that they actually live on the moon (which might lead to hypothetical adventures involving things like "moon gates"/upscale versions of transporter devices like you see in Star Trek) sounds really fun.
As for Sun Elves needing some clarification, they're meant to be something like jungle dwelling mad-scientists/warrior women right?
Why not give them a number of ancestral enemies, with the tropical forest region being the battleground of a multi-front war between the Sun Elves and two or more enemies (maybe something like the Quaggoths, Bullywugs, and Bugbears), with everybody at war with everyone else?
As for transforming into new species, well, maybe have something like the Tabaxi being an emerging species strongly associated with the Sun Elves, and who were in fact released into the world as a kind of field trial?
It would also establish a further contrast between the Moon and Sun Elves.
The Moon Elves are a Dying race whose hopes and dreams of preserving their bloodlines have been answered in the form of their Half-Human descendants, while the Sun Elves are a Falling race who are still seeking the means to return to power.
Again, just my two cents.
Half-Moon Elves . . . I really like your idea here about Moon Elves cherishing their Half-Elf children.
The idea that they actually live on the moon (which might lead to hypothetical adventures involving things like "moon gates"/upscale versions of transporter devices like you see in Star Trek) sounds really fun.
As for Sun Elves needing some clarification, they're meant to be something like jungle dwelling mad-scientists/warrior women right?
Why not give them a number of ancestral enemies, with the tropical forest region being the battleground of a multi-front war between the Sun Elves and two or more enemies (maybe something like the Quaggoths, Bullywugs, and Bugbears), with everybody at war with everyone else?
As for transforming into new species, well, maybe have something like the Tabaxi being an emerging species strongly associated with the Sun Elves, and who were in fact released into the world as a kind of field trial?
It would also establish a further contrast between the Moon and Sun Elves.
The Moon Elves are a Dying race whose hopes and dreams of preserving their bloodlines have been answered in the form of their Half-Human descendants, while the Sun Elves are a Falling race who are still seeking the means to return to power.
Again, just my two cents.
steeldragons
Steeliest of the dragons
Oh, sure. Your collective "water" gnome sounds fine and makesmore sense that dividing them out into two more subraces of gnomes among -what 5 or 6 then? So, sure make them all water gnomes who are either fresh or salt water, if you like. I liked the description of lake water gnomes being "like nixies" and was thinking, really, you could just have them be such. I mean, to humans and the other races that keep track of such things, they are just another kind of gnome...but they (and perhaps some local folktales) call and treat themsevles as "nixies"...or vice versa. The big folk who don't know any better call them "nixies" but they know they're specific offshoot of and still consider themselves "gnomes."
For the plains' guys, as much as I love Elfquest, I'm a little thrown by the idea of having nomadic gnomes befriending and riding wolves...in a land of rabbit-folk. That just seems like a bad idea and asking for them to be mortal enemies in all circumstances at all times. Pony-riding, I suppose could work...and, at least, would not put them in direct connection to predators who would enjoy a haffun a day.
I'd be inclined to simply have the gnomes living in/among the haffun communities. Farming and ranching? Gnoems can do sheep and goats no problem. In fact, plains gnomes goat-herders/riders might have led to the folktales/legends of satyrs or hibsils or some goaty centaur or the like. Also has the benefit for the mostly not-warrior haffuns and the largely not-warrior gnomes to be able to team up and reasonably hold the hobgoblins at bay. If the gnomes and haffuns are always fighting each other because the former's wolves are constantly hunting/eating the latter's offspring, I think they would never have stood a chance to stabilize the region enough to begin farming and ranching.
Haven't gotten far into the haffun material yet, but my immediate reaction -particularly in light of the fact they are consciously intended to fill the "halflling" niche- making them Small makes the most sense. A subrace that is slightly larger -"Hare-aduns," perhaps? hahaha) for protectors (with some, undoubtedly, antagonistic bullies toward the smaller ones) makes sense, but I wouldn't make them Medium....wait, do dwarves count as Medium in 5e? Whatever dwarves are, I'd go with that. 4' max (maybe 4.5 to 5' if you count the ears sticking straight up
. Can't slow their movement though, obviously. So, give them some restrictions on weapons, must use versatile weapons with two hands only, no heavy weapons at all, etc... But Small, for sure, 3-3.5' (3'10"-4'4" with ears), on the "main/default" race.QuietBrowser
First Post
Firstly, thank you for saying that; I'm glad you like the idea so much!
Secondly, yes, the Sun Elves are basically jungle-dwelling warrior women.
Finally, as for your suggestion... hmm... they actually share their continent with a hostile force already, in the form of the hutaakan/gnoll empire, and I was planning on adding the Tondi to their jungle anyway... so, yeah, it makes sense that the jungle may be full of minor species resulting from attempts to uplift jungle fauna as part of their attempts at furthering their mastery of alchemy, creations that have maybe turned against their masters - don't you guys think so?
I could easily see Tondi, Grippli, and maybe some kind of Lizardfolk representing test subjects for their totem-emulation sects that have since been abandoned, tabaxi-esque cat-elf hybrids as one of the "totem bearer clans", and Vanara (monkey-folk) representing either field.
Hm... what do you guys think? Maybe I'm putting the cart before the horse?
Hmm... you mean like have Water Gnomes call themselves nixies?Oh, sure. Your collective "water" gnome sounds fine and makesmore sense that dividing them out into two more subraces of gnomes among -what 5 or 6 then? So, sure make them all water gnomes who are either fresh or salt water, if you like. I liked the description of lake water gnomes being "like nixies" and was thinking, really, you could just have them be such. I mean, to humans and the other races that keep track of such things, they are just another kind of gnome...but they (and perhaps some local folktales) call and treat themsevles as "nixies"...or vice versa. The big folk who don't know any better call them "nixies" but they know they're specific offshoot of and still consider themselves "gnomes."
For the plains' guys, as much as I love Elfquest, I'm a little thrown by the idea of having nomadic gnomes befriending and riding wolves...in a land of rabbit-folk. That just seems like a bad idea and asking for them to be mortal enemies in all circumstances at all times. Pony-riding, I suppose could work...and, at least, would not put them in direct connection to predators who would enjoy a haffun a day.
I'd be inclined to simply have the gnomes living in/among the haffun communities. Farming and ranching? Gnoems can do sheep and goats no problem. In fact, plains gnomes goat-herders/riders might have led to the folktales/legends of satyrs or hibsils or some goaty centaur or the like. Also has the benefit for the mostly not-warrior haffuns and the largely not-warrior gnomes to be able to team up and reasonably hold the hobgoblins at bay. If the gnomes and haffuns are always fighting each other because the former's wolves are constantly hunting/eating the latter's offspring, I think they would never have stood a chance to stabilize the region enough to begin farming and ranching.
Haven't gotten far into the haffun material yet, but my immediate reaction -particularly in light of the fact they are consciously intended to fill the "halflling" niche- making them Small makes the most sense. A subrace that is slightly larger -"Hare-aduns," perhaps? hahaha) for protectors (with some, undoubtedly, antagonistic bullies toward the smaller ones) makes sense, but I wouldn't make them Medium....wait, do dwarves count as Medium in 5e? Whatever dwarves are, I'd go with that. 4' max (maybe 4.5 to 5' if you count the ears sticking straight up
Hmm... you have a valid point about the plains gnomes, but I was kind of envisioning them living seperately from the haffuns. Hm. Maybe cutting them from the equation is best, the haffuns already do fill the plains metaphorically and literally...
Dwarves are considered Medium-sized, mechanically, and to me that makes the most sense if we go for Small rabbit-Haffuns and larger hare-haffuns.
QuietBrowser
First Post
So, just seeking to bump this... big questions on my mind so far are:
Do the Moon Elves make sense as a race? What about the Sun Elves? What about the Haffuns?
Should I elaborate upon the construct servitors of the Moon Elves?
Should I embrace the Craftworld Iyaden inspiration for the Moon Elves and give them necromantic associations? Magitek balenorns, golems controlled by the dreaming spirits of dead elves, etc?
Does it make sense if there are "totem warrior" societies in Sun Elf society? If it does, then does it make sense if some of those might have changed into elf/beast-woman hybrids to be closer to their totem spirit?
Is there any opposition to the idea of giving Haffuns a "harefolk" subrace, who are larger and more aggressive?
Do the Moon Elves make sense as a race? What about the Sun Elves? What about the Haffuns?
Should I elaborate upon the construct servitors of the Moon Elves?
Should I embrace the Craftworld Iyaden inspiration for the Moon Elves and give them necromantic associations? Magitek balenorns, golems controlled by the dreaming spirits of dead elves, etc?
Does it make sense if there are "totem warrior" societies in Sun Elf society? If it does, then does it make sense if some of those might have changed into elf/beast-woman hybrids to be closer to their totem spirit?
Is there any opposition to the idea of giving Haffuns a "harefolk" subrace, who are larger and more aggressive?
Bitbrain
Lost in Dark Sun
Yes, yes, and yes.
If you want to.
Currently, I have this idea in my head that the moon elf army would consist of Warforged soldiers, half-elf captains, and moon elf generals.
Wait, do you mean that this setting concept of yours has . . . zombie robots?
That's awesome.
I think it makes sense, and again, is a way of emphasizing the moon/sun elf division.
A Haffun hare sub-race would enable you to recreate Basil Stag Hare from the Redwall book series . . . Which might be a lot of fun.
Nice ideas, although the gnomes with 30-50 offspring or even if it were only 15-25 bother me a bit in so far that it is a long living race, unless you altered this.
This reproduction ratio means that within 50-100 years the whole planet would drown in gnomes. If that were the case all other races would be alarmed and react to it.
This reproduction ratio means that within 50-100 years the whole planet would drown in gnomes. If that were the case all other races would be alarmed and react to it.
QuietBrowser
First Post
Alright, whilst I happily reply to your comments below, I'm currently at a loss as to what I should do now. Keep trying to expand haffuns and/or elves? Or bring up another of the races and try to come up with more details for them?
A fairly accurate summary, and I would really need to write some kind of expansion on their military at some point, I guess.
In a nutshell? Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. I'm glad you approve!Wait, do you mean that this setting concept of yours has . . . zombie robots?
That's awesome.
Alright, but what about the idea of the sun elves having created some beastfolk races as part of the process? Tests at uplifting animals before they dared experiment on themselves?
The Hares of Redwall were part of my inspiration for the idea.
I don't know about the realism of it; I was basically stealing these titbits of lore from the Gnomes of Wicked Fantasy:
Youth said:
Adulthood said:
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